so, now you know what i've been doing. i felt like it would be nice of me to tell you... seeing that i said that i would post more "tomorrow". and well... that was quite a few tomorrows ago. sorry about that. i'm still going to tell you about the food of randomness that i ate on sao miguel.
let's see... well. we didn't go out to nearly as many restaurants as i was hoping. however, aderito's mom made many different traditional acorean dishes. unfortunately, my portuguese is equivilant to that of a 2 year old. there are some words, that i must think are very important and i can still remember them! however, they aren't going to help much at all. i do remember what we ate in restaurants though!
the second night on the island we walked down to the beach... the beach has been named 'praia vinha d'areia'. which, from what i understand mean vineyard sand beach. anyways, the restaurant we went to is called praia restaurant cafe. it was beautiful! i had asked aderito about the seafood many times... and he always said that we would eat lapas. and, so we did!! they were... cooked. the taste was a combination of an oyster and a clam. squeezing fresh lemon made the lapas very palatable!
i may have mentioned this in the past... but, i turned 30 in portugal. i went into this vacation with fairly grand expectations for my birthday. loads of ideas of where i wanted to go, what i wanted to see... where i absolutely had to eat! however, what i wanted... and what ended up happening were two completely different things. the day after my birthday was my niece matilde's baptism. so, the week leading up to it we cooked and prepared and got ready for the baptism festivities (i spent a week planning, cooking and preparing for my wedding... and i'm fairly sure that they spent waaaay more on this baptism than aderito and i did on our wedding!). the day of my birthday i spent quite a bit of time sweeping and then peeling 100lbs of potatoes. it was a blast. in the evening i managed to pull aderito away from it all... and asked nicely if we could please go out. alone. without family and children or potatoes. i just wanted to relax with him. so, we went back to the praia restaurant cafe. i had a fresh cheese and tomato salad... and delicious baby clams in a lemony broth. oh yum! i think that one of the reasons i wanted to go back to the same restaurant so quickly was because they start off your meal so well! they call it, couvert. which in english just means cover charge. but, when in portugal it means a delightful dish filled with various bits of food to get your palate ready...
fresh cow's cheese (usually make just the day before), fresh butter, tuna (which is canned just down the beach), and black olives... in portuguese. azeitonas pretas. this was E2.50... not too bad!
there was always fresh fish (peixe, in portuguese) available. vila franca do campo is fairly well known in sao miguel for being a fishing town. mae natalia (aderito's mom) made something with fish every night. sometimes it was a tasty potato and cod (bacalau) casserole. one time we had these little fish... they were really crispy and salty... they tasted so good. but, i had a stomach ache for 3 days after. oh yes, mae natalia made tuna rissoles... they are like perogies, filled with tuna, coated in bread crumbs and fried! oh my! aderito and i both requested that we eat them our last night there! one afternoon after going over on the boat to see ilheu vila franca do campo (a very small island just off the coast), aderito and i went to a restaurant (restaurante o jaime) that over looks the fishermen's boat launch and enjoyed super fresh swordfish (espadarte). i've had swordfish here in canada, and it was always kinda tough. i don't know if it was because of the extreme freshness... but, it was unbelievable!
one of the first things i noticed while on sao miguel was that there are picnic areas everywhere. each of these areas has about 5 cement barbeque pits. most of aderito's family all got together for a picnic the last week we were there. there was loads of food!! we grilled potatoes, pork, sausages, hamburgers... and my favourite: sardines! i don't have any pictures of the actual food cooking... however, one when they had just started the fires... aderito is happily whistling and building, and little jonas loved the fires... and would not stay away!!
lastly... queijada de vila franca do campo. little cakes that are only made in vila franca do campo. apparently people (including me) have tried to make these cakes... but, there is no possible way to recreate them! i brought back 2 boxes, and dissected them... and tried to figure out what the ratio of butter:sugar:flour:eggs could possibly be! i have no idea. i tried to find recipes online... there are none in english! and the portuguese versions are well... in portuguese and when i've attempted to translate... the outcome was nothing but sad. i don't get it... i tried to translate the one recipe i've found... i'm pretty sure that it's telling me to make cheese. however, after eating many of these little cakes... i can assure you... there is no cheese!
aww... aderito was so excited about these cakes!! he had told me about them the first christmas we were together... and then returning to bermuda there was a box of the cakes from his mom. it had been a year since he had any, so he was so happy! so, at christmas last year... i decided to show him my mad portuguese translation/baking skills... and whip up a batch of what i thought was queijada de vila. aderito was very sweet, told me that they were good. but, that they were most definitely NOT queijada de vila.
i made sure to take a picture of him outside the building. ugh... how adorable is he?!
the above picture is of the little cakes... after they have been baked. before they get a heavy... and i mean HEAVY dusting of icing sugar. mmmm....
whoa. i think i pretty much covered the important food events. i think that the only other extremely good eating experience was the pineapple. however, i was so pumped to eat it... that i forgot to take a picture. they are not like the pineapples we get here in canada. there is almost no acidity to them at all!! which is strange... because the soil on the island is highly acidic. perhaps, that doesn't effect the pineapple. also, most of the time the pineapples that arrive in canada (or at least ontario)... have travelled from quite far, and are never at thier ideal ripeness. oh the pineapples. next time, i'm definitely bringing some back!
well... i think that this concludes the food portion of my acorean adventure.
what could possibly be next?!
No comments:
Post a Comment